Laughton as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1939: The hunchback and the nineteenth-century gargoyles

Most people are familiar with Victor Hugo's masterpiece TheHunchback of Notre-Dame. Various versions have been made, one of the most famous is the 1939 movie in which Charles Laughton plays Quasimodo. Even Disney produced a cartoon, sanitized for young viewers.

Contrary to the stories appearing on film, in Hugo's novel Quasimodo is a gypsy changeling who is exorcised and then left as a deformed foundling at Notre-Dame. The gypsy Esmeralda is ultimately executed by hanging at Montfaucon, Paris' most famous gibbet which was usually covered in carrion crows who pecked at the various corpses left there to rot.

In 1999, the discovery of a diary in Cornwall appears to reveal the real-life inspiration behind the character of Quasimodo the deaf bell-ringer of Notre Dame, and his tragic, unrequited love for the gypsy girl Esmeralda.

Marlene at Miami Ghost Chronicles is a freelance paranormal investigator and writer.

Over the years I have gathered the most interesting stories that I have witnessed firsthand or that have been retold to me, but there is so much more happening in the mysterious world of the paranormal. I will provide a wide range of the true stories, folklore and urban myths that are a delight to the weird folk that enjoy the supernatural world.